This Woman Is Behind the Viral "First Kiss" Video

"I was surprised how easy it was to get the guys into it, but I guess I shouldn't have been."

"I had no idea it was going to be so huge. I mean we had an idea it could go viral — when I looked at it I knew it was something really special and everyone who saw it really responded to it. But when I looked at it this morning it was at 1.7 million views ... now it's at more than 6 million!" says Wren designer and founder Melissa Coker, the woman behind the now-viral "First Kiss" video.

As soon as the video went live last night, Coker says her phone started blowing up with texts and emails from people both in the fashion and outside of it, who wanted to tell her how much they loved watching it. "Even someone I went on a weird date with texted with me out of the blue. The film, which perfectly captures the delightful awkwardness and tenderness of a first kiss, was shot in February and directed by Tatia Pilieva, a longtime friend of Coker's.

There was no real casting involved, Melissa and Talia asked their friends — many of them professional actors and models in L.A. — to participate, with only one real caveat: None of the smoochers could know each other. And Melissa notes that while some famous faces appear in the video — Langley Fox, Damien Kulash of OK Go, French singer Soko, to name a few — what makes it special is that when they get face to face with their partner and the prospect of kissing a stranger is directly in front of them, they're just as awkward and nervous as the rest of us would be.

How did this project come about?We do something like this every season. We've worked with amazing people in the past — Gia Coppola has directed one for us, Tavi's starred in one, Joanna Newsom, Jim Gordon — so every season my aim is to create something that is interesting on its own and doesn't feel like a commercial. Something that people would actually want to watch.

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Tatia is a longtime friend of mine — since the '90s — and we've always talked about doing something together and everything fell into place for Fall 2014.

Did you know this was going to go viral?Showing it to people before we shared it publicly, I was really taken by the reaction people were having: People were tearing up, people were getting goosebumps; they were really reacting to this. So that kind of gave us a clue that wow, this is special.

We put it on YouTube because we felt like people would share this — the cast members and people who liked it. But I couldn't imagine it at this scale. I didn't think it would be millions of people.

What was it like watching this all happen in person? Was it awkward?No one ever said "action" so even though we were all in the room and everyone was watching, they weren't really aware that the camera was rolling, so even though they were self-conscious, it felt really real. And the fact that they were meeting for the first time was part of that I think. It was very intimate and I think that comes across on camera.

You are watching these amazing, sweet, tender moments, and you can't help but feel something. I think that's what's so special too: how often do you watch something — let alone an internet video, let alone a fashion film — and have these physical reactions? It was touching to watch the video. Also a lot of these people are my friends, which was a funny element too.

Did any love matches come out of this?Soko and Marian have hung out since, which is fun. I don't know about anyone else, but it was cool to see people get along.

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Also, Soko's song, which is what's playing in the video, "We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow," has like a million downloads today, which is incredible. I'm so happy for her.

How did you cast this video? Were your friends into it?The girls were more familiar naturally with these videos. Many of them have done stuff with us in the past whether it's been appearing in a look book or a shoot, but they wanted to know more about who they were going to paired with.

The guys were like 'I'm going to kiss a girl? I'm in.'

I was surprised how easy it was to get the guys into it, but I guess I shouldn't have been.

Have you had any of your own awkward first kiss experiences?All of them.

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